Our first go at working exclusively with paper. This was definitely a learning experience! But with only about three weeks to do this and not much experience, we are pretty happy with the results. Shanna and I both designed and built the puppets and sets, and animated the film. This was done as a final project for one of our studio classes. Special thanks to Sean Pecknold and Jordan Bruner for lending us a bit of their wisdom!

"The Cat and the Rat" is based upon one story of how the twelve zodiac were assigned, or more specifically, why the Cat was excluded from the twelve. As this version of the story goes, there was a great race to reach the Jade Emperor's palace. The Cat and the Rat were not good swimmers, so together they rode on the back of the Ox. But the Rat, being clever and cunning, pushed the Cat off of the Ox's back. By the time he reached the palace, the twelve zodiac had already been assigned.